Love at First Hearing! Metallica’s One.

A poem about the first time I heard a song from Metallica, it was the One!

It was the 2009 edition of ”Top 10 of Everything”,

I was thirteen years old at the time,

“Top 10 Most Played Metal Songs of the Year”,

And there it was in that list.

I can’t remember it’s exact rank in the list,

it has been so long since then,

but the artist’s name was what drew me to it,

it was METALLICA!

What a “Metal” name! METALLICA!

I don’t even remember any of the other 9 songs,

this was the ONE I wanted to hear, my first Metal song!

How do you even describe the feeling?

Even today, a dozen years after I first heard it,

I fantasise about playing this song to an audience,

and blasting those riffs,

those machine gun riffs.

How do I describe the feeling, of that backstory?

even today I get nightmares about Johnny,

what a miserable life that is,

to be alone, having life pumped into you!

How do I describe the feeling, when I hear that opening melody!

when I hear the slow upshift in tempo,

when it finally gets heavy! Oh it’s beautiful!

How do I describe the feeling,

that hits me like waves for 5 minutes,

when those “machine gun” thud-thud-thud starts blasting,

those lyrics, those guitar sounds,

So melodious, and so metal!

And while these emotions are hitting me,

right there in a corner of my mind, I still think about Johnny,

can’t get him out of my head,

I just hope he finds peace and closure, somehow!

There are songs that you want to un-hear,

just so you can feel them again for the first time,

experience the feeling to hear them for the first time,

this is One of them.

If I had a time machine, I’d go to Seattle in ’89, or Mexico ‘93,

Metallica: thank You for giving the world One.

Thank You for listening to my poems— Shakespeare wannabe :-)